Hate Interval Exercise for Jazz Guitar? Just wait...

I have laid out conventional intervals (here). But, there are more!

A tritone is defined in music theory as three adjacent whole tones. In the video, Mary starts with A-B, B-C#, C#-Db where A-Db is the tritone. Moving across the next in fourths, A-D, the next tritone is D-G#. Where this pattern changes is from the G-B strings (4-5) where the fingering pattern is different but the tritone is still C-D, D-E, E-F#. The fingering is easy 1-2 except from the g-b string who is 1-3..

Skipping a string, same notes, the fingering is 4-(1-)

When Mary plays stacked triotones, she plays A-Db, Db-A, A-Db with fingering 1-2-3-4 on adjacent strings. This is an interesting sound because there are only two notes A and Db an octave apart. On the A-string, the fingering is 1-2-3-(4+) and on the D string the fingering is 1-2-(3+)-4.

Sous le Soleil

Notes

How to Play on Guitar

Lyrics

Sous le soleil (In the sun)

Allongée au soleil (Lying in the sun)

Mon coeur s'éveille (My heart comes alive)

Au frisson de plaisir (To the chills of pleasure)

Ne plus partir (Don’t leave again)

Ne plus partir (Don’t leave again)

(more)

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/sous-le-soleil-sun.html

Musicians: What is Deconstruction? What is Resistance? What is the System?

The Facebook posting above by Sebastien Ammann really opened my ears and mind. Right now, while the US is enduring the Neo-Fascist Trump 2 Administration, I don't really feel like making beautiful music.

My approach, so far, to making music is to take conventional jazz standards, deconstruct them, given them a new name and just improvise over the deconstruction. For me, musical deconstruction is tearing the song (chords and melody) apart and reassembling it in some other, updated form. For example, the jazz standard Our Love is Here to Stay becomes Fascism is Here to Stay.

Sebastiene Ammann points out that this type of improvisation is a form of resistance. Here's what I think he is saying. If you are a musician trying to become part of the current Music System (Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classical, whatever) you are involved in a very rigid even authoritarian endeavor. Even Jazz has become Academic and Classical with rigidly proscribed forms (Play the Head, Improvise, Play the Head, Out). If this is what you want to do, Great! I'm not criticizing** just saying that you are part of the System (just try playing like Eric Dolphy in your High School Jazz band, even though Dolphy is an established Jazz musician).

Let's also point out that The System is what brought us the Neo-Fascist Trump 2 Administration. Being part of it makes you complicit and Complicity is Painless. A more painful route is to Deconstruct and Resist. Can You Dig It CUDI? 

Notes

** I love listening to all kinds of music; it is great escapism. There is plenty of escapist music available. Making music is a different matter. I have to have some feelings and connection with what I'm playing, not just playing notes on a page. If you decide to resist the current music system and the SocioPolitical System it is embedded in, you will: (1) not make a lot of new friends, (2) hear your songs played on the radio or on Spotify, or (3) get much work as a professional musician. The only way to deal with the repercussions of resistance is develop a philosophy of not giving a fuck (DGAF). Figure out was it important to you and DGAF about the rest of it. Musicians who have been very successful at NGAF are (1) Time Berne, a DIY New York Jazz musician and (2) Mary Halvorson. Give them a listen.

Review: Mike Moynihan and Creosote Jazz Collective at the Tucson Jazz Festival

In a prior "review" of Valentines Eye by Kitty LaRoar I commented that since I'm a musician (and not a critic) I don't do reviews. But, here I go again with a "review" of Mike Moynihan and the Creosote Jazz Collective at the 2017 Tucson Jazz Festival (TJF). They played at the Downtown Jazz Fiesta for MLK Day on the Connect Coworking Stage. My reviews are only of performances I like so in that sense, I'm not a critic.

What I liked about Mike Moynihan and his group was the blend of instruments and the beautiful sound they produced. The key to this great sound was Mike's decision to choose vibraphone and guitar for the septet. Listen to the video above. It is just selections from a few pieces, but I hope it gives you a sense of the beautiful sound, blend and interaction achieved by the group. I wish I had a complete recording of the entire hour (Mike tells me he is working on getting the full hour on line). Some beautiful moments, particularly in the endings where Tristan Rogers uses the vibraphone's motor, were missed. I hope at some time in the future, Mike records with this group, maybe even in a live, rather than a studio session. It's not easy to create this great a sound in a live setting and when you succeed it creates an exciting recording.

The interaction between guitarist Matt Mitchell and vibraphonist Tristan Rogers is important to appreciate. The guitar and vibraphone can both be played as chordal instruments. They can also be used to play only single-note, horn-like improvisational lines. Mitchell and Rogers used both approaches and never stepped on each other. Their interaction allowed Mike to sail over the top and allowed the rhythm section (Nathan Hooker on drums and Jack Wood on bass) to stay solid underneath. If you play any of these instruments and are a jazz musician, the Creosote Collective is worth your study.

Mike's first recording, Chronicles, got great reviews (here). You can download a copy of Chronicles from CdBaby here. You can read Mike's biography here.

The Creosote Jazz Collective consists of:

Nathan Hooker - drums

Matt Mitchell - guitar

Michael Moynihan - saxophone 

Tristan Rogers - vibraphone

Jack Wood - bass

Selections played at TJF (in set order with composers):

1. Wax and Wayne (Moynihan)

2. The Sickness (Moynihan)

3. The Infinite (Rogers)

4. To The Stars (Moynihan)

5. Kindness (Moynihan)

6: I Have A Dream (Moynihan)

As an extra treat, all the selections were original compositions by Moynihan and Rogers. They were all great! I wish I could play each one of them for you (if Mike gets the full set on line, I'll review each song in a future post)!

It's All About Education: Can You Dig It?

Why are there so few black male teachers? Chris Emdin of Columbia University suggests that a cycle of failure haunts students and their teachers (click below to enlarge):

Students act out, so teachers tighten the rules; more restrictions combined with dull and irrelevant curricula cause students to fail, and teachers quit -- thinking it’s their fault.

In the video above, Prof. Emdin raps his Humble Opinion on why the system needs to be changed. Prof. Emdin also has a book out titled For White Folk That Teach in the Hood...And, the rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education that's a very good read.

Gary Burton: How To Play Jazz Ballads

Gary Burton (who has an on-line jazz course from the Berklee School of Music here) has a simple recommendation for playing ballads: embellish the melody, don't play scales. His argument is that ballad melodies are always given a thoughtful treatment by the composer. If you like the ballad, it's unlikely that your improvisation will improve on it very much.

This is the same approach that Wes Montgomery used:

Improvisation on a given melody is a melodic variation of the established melody. When improvising in the style of Wes Montgomery, it is important to retain enough of the notes of the original melody to maintain the feeling of the tune (Lee Garson, Jimmy Stewart and Charles Stewart, 1968 Wes Montgomery Jazz Guitar Method Robbins Music, New York, page 18).

Gary Burton is playing the song For Heaven Sake (a song made famous by Billy Holiday, hear her version here), which Wes Montgomery also played.



This is not the easiest ballad Gary might have chosen for instruction. The melody has many non-scale tones and goes through three key changes. Here is the figured bass:

(F)  ||(V)||   II  V  |  I  VIx  |  II V  |  I  Ix   |
           |   IVm  bIVm  |  III  bIIIm7b5 |  II  V  |   I  ||
          ||   II  V  |  I  VIx  |  II V  |  I       |
           |   Ivm  bIVm  |  III  bIIIm7b5 |  II  V  |   I  ||
(Db)      ||   II  V  |  I  | II  V  | I (bVo  VIIx) |
(Eb)       |   II  VIIx  |  II  V  |  Vm  Ix  | (F) II V  ||
(F)       ||   II  V  |  I  VIx  |  II V  |  I  Ix   |
           |   IVm  bIVm  |  III  bIIIm7b5 |  II  V  |   I (V)  ||

And, here is a nice jam track with chord symbols displayed (there are some minor differences from the figured bass above, but the figured bass shows the repeating II-V-I and linear IVm-bIVm-III-bIII patterns that define the song).



EXERCISES

1. Write out the melody in the key of F by playing along with a recorded version and transcribing if necessary.
2. Study Gary Burton's and Wes Montgomery's solos carefully noticing how the melody is embellished but remains in the improvisations, even if only hinted.
3. Take other well know Jazz Ballads (see the list here that includes jam tracks and chord charts-- available when you choose a song). Use the same approach, first play the melody then elaborate the melody, do not run chord scales).
4. Take well know Bebop or Swing tunes (for example here) and see if you can use the same approach (melody embellishment). Can you use this simpler approach or, as Gary Burton suggests, is it necessary to run chord scales for these tunes? Let your ear be the guide.
5. On For Heaven's Sake try another approach: Play only within the major scales defined by the key changes F-Db-Eb-F. Try starting at different points in each scale and playing that mode. For example, starting on the second note (G-G in the F scale) is the Dorian mode. Starting on the sixth note (D-D in the F scale) is the Aeolian. The name of the mode is not as important as hearing that it will sound different. Personally, I like starting on the seventh (E-E in the F scale) which is the Locrian mode (a diminished sounding scale).
6. Finally, treat the entire song as a modal tune. Construct a scale that uses every note in the tune. Run the scale from D-D using all the non-chordal notes and the Bb in the key of F. How does this sound. Does it work across all the key changes or do you need to be careful?

Redman and Mehldau: The Nearness of You

In my last post (here) I introduced the current project of Joshua Redman & Brad Mehldau. Now, let's do something with that by integrating it in our own playing. Let's take the Jazz Standard The Nearness of You, a Hoagy Carmichael song from 1938. Here's the figured bass:

A:  (F) ||  I  | Vm  Ix  |  IV  |  IVo  |  III  bIIIx  |  II  V  | III bIIIx  |  II  V  ||

            ||  I  | Vm  Ix  |  IV  |  IVo  |  III  bIIIx  |  II  V  | I  bVIIx  |   I6     ||

B:        ||  II  |  V  |  I  Vm  |  Ix  |  IV  |  IIIo  VIx  |  II  |  V  ||

A:        ||  I  | Vm  Ix  |  IV  |  IVo  |  III  bIIIx  |  II  V  | I  (VI  |  II V)     ||

There are lots of special (III-bIIIx or IV-IVo or I-Vm-Ix, etc.) and standard (II-V-I) chord progressions that make the song interesting. There are also parts of the song that could be altered to add interest, for example a modal Gm bridge with the bass pedal on G. And, of course, Mehldau does a lot of interesting things with chord changes throughout the song. There is much to study here.

EXERCISES

1. If you play a chordal instrument (guitar, vibraphone or piano), find an interested musician who plays a single note instrument (brass or string instrument), make sure you know this song in-and-out, by memory and are comfortable with it (if not, find some other song you are). Then, try a free improvisational session in the style of Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau. How did it work for you? What did you learn? (If you don't play a chordal instrument, find a guitar, piano or vibraphone player).
2. Use lines from the Redman-Mehldau version, particularly Brad Mehldau's introduction, and write a new song using those ideas and any parts of the figured bass above you find interesting. Play the song for some other musicians. If you've done this exercise correctly, they should not have been able to identify your new song as The Nearness of You. If you need more inspiration, listen to Milt Jackson's version (below), one of my favorites.

Joshua Redman's New Project

The PBS NewsHour just ran a piece on Joshua Redman's new project with Brad Mehldau. This is really different from his last project with the Bad Plus in that Redman and Mehldau are emphasizing improvisation while The Bad Plus downplayed the improvisatory aspect of their playing. The NewsHour feature was a little frustrating in that they only played brief cuts of Redman and Mehldau improvising. The NewsHour feature really didn't demonstrate Redman and Mehldau's approach to improvisation which involves listening and interacting. The following cut (from SoundCloud) seems to be a good example.



As a brief comparison with Redman's earlier project, The Bad Plus Joshua Redman, try the following piece for comparison.



There is a lot more of Joshua Redman's work to hear on SoundCloud if you are interested:

• The Bad Plus Joshua Redman
• Joshua Redman and Brad Mehltau
• Joshua Redman
• The Bad Plus

All of this is great music and a taste of things to come in Jazz. From The Bad Plus, I particularly like the Seven Minute Mind:

What Can Jazz Musicians Learn from Baroque Music?

It might seem at first that Jazz composition would have little to learn from Baroque Music. In an interview with National Public Radio (NPR here), mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato helped clarify the issue for me.

NPR was interviewing Ms. DiDonato about her new album In War and Peace: Harmony Through Music. The album is a collection of baroque arias from the 17th and 18th centuries. It is divided into two sections, the first addressing war, the second addressing peace. Two comments DiDonato made in the interview caught my attention.

First, somewhat later in the interview, she said:

There is a purity to the music of the Baroque world. We haven't hit dense harmonies yet. It's not overly complex orchestrations. It's really a chance where the text and the voice get to be center stage. And I think that's a chance for more raw emotion to emerge, because there's so much space for the listener to enter into this music.

DiDonato finds that returning to the earlier, less complex form of classical music allows more raw emotion to emerge and also allows the listener to enter more easily into the music. The same can be said for the transition to modal compositions in Jazz. A great example is Miles Davis' Kind of Blue album, one of the most successful jazz albums ever released. The compositions are modal, meaning very simple chord progressions with improvisations drawn from the actual notes in the melodies (rather than from scales and chord substitutions).

Second, was the process DiDonato used to select the arias for her album.

I was sitting at my piano going through a stack of arias, trying to find repertoire for this, and the Paris attacks had just happened. And I thought, I have to address what's happening today, because these composers from years and centuries ago have already been talking about war and peace.

There is a largely unexplored area of jazz composition where choices of songs on an album are designed to address "what's happening today".  Jazz is one of the least popular form of music in the US accounting for just 1.4% of total music consumption (tied, interestingly, with classical music). Joyce DiDonato has revived interest in baroque music by, first, linking it to "what's happening today" and second, by throwing off the stuffy, fat-lady-sings image of opera singers. Jazz musicians take note!

Here is the entire NPR inter interview:

EXERCISES

1. Pick a current "what's happening today" topic that interests you and that you care deeply about (forget about your love life or the typical topics that are the basis for Rock, R&B and Blues songs). If you don't have any concern about "what's happening today," get concerned!
2. Go through your jazz collection, the Great American Song Book and the Real Book (your stack of arias) looking for songs that speak to your  "what's happening today" concern. It helps if the songs have lyrics and if you know the lyrics. Maybe the song title is corny or dated, but there might be a lyric that speaks to your issue.
3. Now comes the fun part! Rewrite the song. Change the title: uses some lyrics you like or some phrase that's appropriate to your concern. Simplify the chord progression by looking for the few chords that capture the feeling you are after. Simplify or entirely change the melody so that it fits a modal scale you find particularly interesting and appropriate to the new song. For the solo, improvised sections of the song, pick one or two chords and use the modal scale (not the original chord changes) for improvisation. Next, change the rhythm of the song: turn a swing song into a ballad; turn a ballad into a Bossa Nova; turn a rock song into Latin Beat; turn a blues song into a Hip Hop beat. Pick some rhythm from modern dance music.  Forget standard jazz rhythms.
4. EXTRA CREDIT: Go right to the source. Take the Handel aria Joyce DiDonato sings in the video above (guitar score here, entire aria here, chord progression and melody here) and rewrite it as a modal jazz head (see the figured bass line below).

Why should you bother doing any of this? Here's another quote from Joyce DiDonato:

Music can be a real guiding light towards empathy, and I can't think of any better prescription. Let's put it to the United States of America right now, a country divided. If we had more empathy, that's a healing thing. And music, because it goes to the heart and bypasses the brain, can put people in a position to hear another point of view, to be less afraid of it. I believe a thousand percent that music can do that and this album can help that. I would love for that to be true.

FIGURE BASS

Lascia ch'io pianga An interesting aspect of this Handel aria is that it was used in a number of operas under different names and slight rearrangements. 

(F) || I | II |V | Ix I | IV | V I | IV V | I ||

(G) ||  I | V I | II  (F) I | (C) V | I (I) | I ||

Notice the key changes (in parentheses) and the six measure bridge. Use the lyrics to name the new song:

Lascia ch'io pianga mia cruda sorte, e che sospiri la libertà. Il duolo infranga queste ritorte de' miei martiri sol per pietà.

Allow that I weep over my cruel fate, and that I may sigh for the freedom Let my sadness shatter these chains of my suffering, if only out of pity.

Jazz Review: Valentine's Eve

I am not a critic and don't write reviews of other musician's work, so technically this post is not a review. But, I just can't help commenting on this album.

If you are a jazz musician, you have to hear this album. It features Kitty LaRoar (vocals), Nick Shankland (piano) and Ed Jones (sax). No drummer. No bass player. I listen to a lot of music but I can't say that I have ever heard an album like this before (you can tell me in the comments if you have). But, I have experienced the feel of this album one time before. It was at the end of a long engagement. The last set. The last song. It was late. The bar was empty except for a small audience, all sitting apart at different tables. It was the last time this group would ever play together. They were all exhausted.

Somehow, the players all managed to dig in and give one final quiet, beautiful last performance of their standard ending tune. The playing was quiet, intense, not an extra note played anywhere, just the distilled essence of a year working together. A peak experience for everyone. No one talked as the group packed up and went home.

This, I have found, is what jazz musicians play for, night after night in rooms with poor acoustics, inattentive audiences, misbehaving equipment and rude club owners. It's that one peak experience. It has only happened to me once.

What is so unusual about "Valentine's Eve" is that every song feels like, and takes me back to, that one night a long time ago in a club I can't remember. I wrote Nick Shankland that, at first I could taste my martini and smell the smoke. After listening to the entire album, it was much more than that. If you are a musician and have never had that peak experience, the only way I could possibly tell you about it is to have you listen to this album. The musicians in the group I played with have never talked with me about that last set. We probably would not know what to say to each other.

The trailer above will give you brief sample. If you like it and get just a little transported or are just a little interest in what a peak playing experience feels like, by all means buy the entire album. Just remember, this is not a review. I'm not a critic and don't write reviews.

P.S. If you are a musician, please pay close attention to the sections where voice, sax and some times piano work in unison. This is not easy. It's especially difficult to play quietly, maintain your intensity and maintain your pitch. I never lost my attention for one minute while listening to this album and I am the most easily distracted person the universe.

A Lesson in Jazz Composition from Johannes Brahms

The PBS NewsHour ran another great piece by Rob Kapilow titled A contemporary composer considers the musical legacy of Johannes Brahms. The piece might easily be overlooked by a jazz musician but that would be a mistake. Kapilow explains how Brahms was able to write from the "heart" with "mathematical precision". Surely, this is the challenge for every composer and improviser.

The device Brahms used in this piece is what Kapilow calls "1, 2, up" and then "1, 2, leap" and then resolving to "1, 2, down". Here is the first four measures of the Brahms Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118, No. 2

You can listen to Arthur Rubinstein play the entire piece here (if you just let YouTube play you will hear different versions and even, possibly a Bill Evans piece--Listen). It is a beautiful, emotional piece of music built on a simple concept.

EXERCISE

1. Use the "1, 2, up, leap and down" device to write a simple modal piece in Am or a Im-IVm-V+ progression for eight measures or any chords in the key of Am. Concentrate on the melody (remember from my last post that the chords are arbitrary).

2. Next switch from Am to A major and continue with the modal piece or the I-IV-V structure.

3. Then start the keys descending from A-Gm-Fm-F-Ebm.

4. Do it all over again, this time looking for other lines around which entire new compositions can be built.

A Lesson in Jazz Improvisation from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Today is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birthday. Yesterday, the PBS News Hour (here) ran a piece with composer Rob Capilow discussing Mozart's Symphony #40 in Gm (video above), one of his most well know works (you can hear the entire symphony here). In the symphony, Mozart takes a simple three-note idea and develops it into a major work relying only on his great creative powers. This is the essential challenge facing any jazz musician and the symphony is worth any creative musician's careful study.

Here's the opening theme which every musician will instantly recognize (you have probably heard it on someones cell phone ringtone here, the musical notation is from Wikipedia here).

Through key changes, chord changes, rhythm changes, pure invention, and creative genius, Mozart turns it into a masterpiece. Happy birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an inspiration to every creative musician.

EXERCISE

1. Take any simple jazz, blues or folk melody. Using key changes, chord changes, rhythm changes and your own creative powers, transform it into a jazz masterpiece!

2. Pick another melody. Do it again!

Should You Enter the 2016 Wes Montgomery Jazz Guitar Competition?

The twitter posting above from the great Jazz Guitarist Russell Malone summarizes pretty much how I have always felt about competitions. For me, it's like going to Las Vegas and gambling. I know I'm going to loose. What's the point?

Now that I'm older and not eligible to enter the Competition (see the rules here), I have a little different perspective and I would give different advice to myself. Even if you're not going to win, if you had a point you were trying to make, your reason for going through all the trouble would be to make the point. Looking through a lot of the submissions (actually the only person I know who listened to all the submissions was George Klabin, president and founder of Resonance Records--I wasn't even in the top ten with 72 views), my impression is that none of the guitarists actually used Wes Montgomery's three-tier approach to improvisation (single note, octaves and chords) or many other aspects of Montgomery's playing (see my discussion of Wes Montgomery's approach here).

One strategy you might adopt as a contestant would be to actually apply Wes Montgomery's approach to your submission. For me, at least, the main purpose of the competition should be to keep Wes Montgomery's music and vision alive. Unfortunately, the stated purpose of the competition was to "find the generation's next great jazz guitarist,"  which I think is a mistake. No competition will discover this person for the jazz audience. A submission that really kept Montgomery's vision alive (and maybe even extended it a little, if that's possible) would at least have to make the judges pause for a moment. 

Maybe great facility and fast playing always win competitions but those were never Montgomery's goals. And, maybe Wes would have never won a competition or even bothered submitting (he had to be pushed to originally audition for Lionel Hampton). He was far too modest and self-effacing.  I think that is Russell Malone's point and I completely agree. But, there is still a part of me that likes to make a point, particularly through my playing.

In future posts I'll try to lay the ground work for keeping Montgomery's vision alive.

Pasquale Grasso Wins the Wes Montgomery Jazz Guitar Competition

The winner of the 2015 Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition has been announced and it is New York guitarist Pasquale Grasso. Second place went to Roland Balogh of Budapest Hungary and third place to Michael Valenu of New New York.  You can see all the finalists video submissions here.

In the video above, Pasquale is playing Just One of Those Things with Pat Bianchi on B3 and Carmen Intoree on drums (you can hear this backup group behind Pat Martino at the 2014 Lotos Jazz Festival here). This song, played a break-neck speed, is a good demonstration of Pasquale's facility and approach to playing.

Now that you've seen the winner and the finalists, would you think about entering next year's competition? In future posts I'll present what I think would be an interesting strategy to pursue for any young guitarist that might be interested.

Wes Montgomery Competition Finalists: Pick the Winner!

The 5 finalists for the Wes Montgomery international Jazz Guitar Competition were announced on September 1, 2015 (for background read my earlier post here or visit the website here). In alphabetical order they are:

• Roland Balogh from Budapest, Hungary.
• Pasquale Grasso from Italy.
• Lucian Gray from Toronto, Canada.
• Michael Valeanu born in Paris but now residing in New York.
• Dan Wilson from Akron, Ohio, US.

I have included their video submissions below (you can find their other submissions on the website here). After listening to the finalists, I have my favorites. Can you pick the winner? What do the selections tell you about the criteria used by the judges (compare your guesses to mine here).












The 30 semi-finalists were announced in September (here). What is a bit surprising to me is that Graham Dechter was not a finalist. I've included Graham's video submission below. My guess is that Graham is considered an already established guitarist.



Graham is playing a great song by Josh Nelson "Takin' It There". In a future post, I'll analyze the songs that were used in the submissions and give you a chance to match your technique to the finalists.

The winners will be announced at a concert given by the finalists on October 10, 2015 at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. If you're free, it should be interesting!

So You Want To Play Like Wes Montgomery, Part 1

This post originally started out recapping my history trying to learn jazz guitar (starting with early  Wes Montgomery recordings), only because I think I made some mistakes that I would encourage students not to make as they learn the guitar. But things have changed as explained in my last post (here). There is now a Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition. This is only the first year for the competition. How long it will last I do not know but my hope is that it lasts for a very long time. In any event, if you enter the competition, you have to confront the Wes Montgomery jazz guitar legacy (certainly, this is one of the purposes of the competition). So, whether or not you want to play like Wes Montgomery, you will have to decide before the competition how much like Wes Montgomery (if at all) you intend to play for the submission. To do that, you have to learn something about how Wes Montgomery played. If you are an instructor teaching jazz guitar, you might have to deal with more student interest in Wes Montgomery.

Suppose a guitar student shows up (as I did forty years ago) and says "I want to play like Wes Montgomery" or "I want to enter the Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition". What do you say to them? Is there a book you can give them? Is there an educational program you can put them on that they can complete? Is there someone you could point to who has actually done this?

First off, it might be a poorly stated goal. Did I mean I wanted to follow the steps Wes Montgomery did to learn Jazz Guitar? If so, don't read this blog, don't look for a teacher or for an instructional book, since Wes did none of these things. He started with a four string tenor guitar given to him by his older brother Monk Montgomery. He switched to a six string when he heard his first Charlie Christian record. He worked out and memorized all the Charlie Christian solos he found on records. He went out in Indianapolis clubs and played these solos note for note. He played so well he got a job with the Lionel Hampton band (Hampton worked with Christian in the Benny Goodman band and was looking for the Christian sound in his band). Wes never had a formal teacher (the best teacher in Indianapolis was all booked with students). He evidently never read instructional books (this is a little hard to believe but what the books of that era contained was pretty poor in any event). He worked everything out by brute-force saying that every guitarist has "the same six strings I do". He stumbled onto octave playing and playing with his thumb by chance. He never used his fourth finger when playing single-note lines. He played sophisticated chord voicings but struggled with the names for the chords and could not read music.

It's safe to say that today (1) no one knows exactly how Wes Montgomery learned to play jazz guitar since he did it by himself and never wrote an instructional book and (2) no one would or could ever duplicate exactly the steps Wes went though learning the instrument. However, in the words of drummer Jimmy Cobb, "He left a whole lot of stuff there for you to work on, if you're a guitar player" (Fitzgerald, 2009: 1). Unencumbered by instruction and surrounded by great musicians (Monk Montgomery, Buddy Montgomery, Mel Rhyne, the Lionel Hampton Band and more) and great music, Wes discovered new territory for the jazz guitar. In the post-Montgomery era, this new territory has been well studied (see references below).

The bigger challenge for jazz guitarists today is to understand what was discovered by Wes Montgomery and build on it. The person that succeeds at this will stand a good chance of winning the Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition and will, at least, be a very competent jazz guitarist.

A place to start would be to see what has been written about playing in the style of Wes Montgomery. Here's a summary of topics, some of which I have already covered or will cover in future posts (references and interesting quotes below):

1. Play With Your Thumb (tornado in classical guitar technique). If you don't think you can play fast enough or are just coping Wes Montgomery lines, listen to Jim Mullen or Emily Remler. 
2. Play Octaves using jazz guitar technique or classical guitar technique (parallel octaves). See my prior post here. Also, learn to play double octaves (for example, Bumpin' on Sunset transcribed in Sokolow, 1988: 28-33).
3. Use a fat body arch-top jazz guitar (Wes used a Gibson L-5 CES, way too expensive now--there are many other excellent reasonably priced jazz guitars, for example the Epiphone Joe Pass, the Aria Pro guitars and others).
4. Play along with recordings. Wes memorized Charlie Christian solos from records but he also slowed down the turntable to study Giant Steps and communicated with Creed Taylor using tape recorded songs. In Wes' era, turntable or tape speeds could be slowed down to learn songs. Since we can no longer do that with digital media, consider using a free audio-editor and recorder such as Audacity and use the "Change Speed Effect" which does not change pitch while slowing the recording down. 
5. Watch Wes Montgomery play the guitar in every video you can find (for example, Wes Montgomery Live in '65 Full Concert). Notice that Wes never gets locked into a box, he is always moving fluidly up and down the neck in response to the flow of his improvisation. Most of the improvisation is done on the top four strings, especially in the higher registers (possibly a holdover from Wes' start on the four-string tenor guitar). Compare these visuals to, for example, Pat Martino (particularly the Pat Martino Trio -- Lotus Jazz Festival 2014) who seems to work mainly on the middle four strings all over the neck.
6. Learn the Blues (for example, Blues in F, Blue Monk, Twisted Blues, and many others). Be sure to read the excellent discussions of Missile Blues (Marhsall, 2001: 9-10), West Coast Blues (Marshall, 2001: 24), Naptown Blues (Sokolow, 1988: 70), Movin' Wes Part I (Sokolow, 1988: 55) and Movin' Wes Part II (Sokolow, 1988: 92).
7. Learn to swing (it's hard to teach but there is a good discussion by Emily Remler here).
8. Play Ballads (required by Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition for example Misty, Ghost of a Chance, Polka Dots and Moonbeams, Serene,  Angel Eyes and more).
9. Play Pop Music and Smooth Jazz (The origins of Smooth Jazz have been traced to the albums by Creed Taylor and Wes Montgomery, for example the Bumpin' album).
10. Play Bossa Nova and Latin Jazz (for example, How Insensitive, Here's That Rainy Day, Watch What Happens, Besame Mucho, Nica's Dream, and more)
11. Play Rock (for example, Green Peppers, Goin on to Detroit, Winds of Barcelona, Wind Song, Goin Out of My Head, Windy, Eleanor Rigby, and more).
12. Learn to "first play the lead sheet form before you attempt the stylistic solo" (Garson et. al, 1968: 18). Make sure to add bluesy touches to the lead sheet; don't play it straight. Most lead sheet melodies can be played easily within two-octave boxes choosing the position based on the key signature. The boxes extend nicely on the top four strings, showing how Wes Montgomery certainly visualized the fingerboard. If you don't have a lead sheet, play the melody along with a recording and memorize it (how Wes did it) or write out the melody and make your own lead sheet (for the chords, play the bass line and use Figured Bass--I'll talk more about this in future posts but also see Mehegan, 1959: Chapter 76). 
13. When improvising "retain enough of the notes of the original melody to maintain the feeling of the tune"(Garson et. al, 1968: 18). Either explicitly or implicitly target the melody notes (Garson et. al, 1968: 18).
14. Play Vamps and Ostinatos (for example, Movin' Wes Part II, Scarborough Fair, and Sunny).
15. Use three-part structure improvisations (single-note, octaves, and chords, for example Full House). Wes did deviate from the pattern leaving out a single-note or a chordal improvisation but my guess is that he experimented with each form before deciding what worked best for the song, for example compare Sunny and Sunny (Alternate Take). In the more commercial records, the decisions were often made for him to just play octaves (Ingram, 2008: 47). 
16. When playing single-note solos, visualize the Comping and Complex Chord shapes  of the underlying harmony as Charlie Christian did (Hansen, 2001) and Wes surely picked up through transcription.
17. When playing scales use  sweep-picking, especially effective with the thumb (see useful closed-form arpeggio fingerings and exercises here).
18. Learn to play chords (triads, chords built in thirds, chords built in fourths, and spread chords) and chord scales. A useful place to start is with Comping and Complex Chord shapes which are root-position chord forms widely used in jazz (you can pick up inversions later or see Fowler, 1977:5).
19. Learn voice-leading, harmonization of non-chordal tones, treatment of appoggiatura, treatment of chordal anticipations, and  reharmonization of lead sheets (see Garson, 1968).
20. Play every Wes Montgomery transcription (here) and Charlie Christian transcription you can get your hands on (Hansen, 2001).
21. Listen to John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney and Tal Farlow (Ingram, 2008: 50) musicians  who Wes liked and studied.
22. Listen to and use Big Band horn section ideas and arrangements, particularly call and response (for example,  Twisted Blues, Naptown Blues,  Movin' Wes Part II, and others). 
23. Write your own songs (possibly as a jazz contrafact). In Adrian Ingram's (2008) discography, Wes Montgomery is credited with writing forty-five songs. Start with Blues Structure, add II-V-I progressions, add Cycle of Fifths, use some unexpected chords.

This would be a lot to have to study in preparation for a guitar competition! For the current Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition, you are going to have to be selective. One idea would be to chose the cover song you want to play, identify all the Wes Montgomery stylistic elements and bring them in to your other selections. You might also want to listen to the current submissions (here) to evaluate your competition on the Wes Montgomery stylistic elements listed above.

So far, I have posted about octaves, arpeggios, melody statements and complex comping chords. I'll try to pick up the rest of the topics over time, but I have one word of caution. We do not know definitively how Wes Montgomery approached jazz guitar playing. We know that Wes did not have a formal teacher "Wes did remember though that he once tried to get some guitar lessons for Indianapolis guitarist Alex Stevens (without success) " (Ingram, 2008: 16). We know from video recordings that his approach was somewhat idiosyncratic (he evidently did not use his fourth left-hand finger for single note playing although he did use the fourth finger for octaves on the top two strings). We know that Wes understood more musical theory than he would openly admit (he said he did not know the names of the chords he was playing but proceeded to give Pim Jacobs, here,  a sophisticated discussion of chord changes and substitutions in End of a Love Affair in the BBC sessions). Utlimately, Wes' comment that other guitarists were playing with the "same six strings I have" saves us here. We are all playing with the same six strings Wes did.

The title of this post implies that there will be future posts where I add my own insights to this list. It is also a play on the title on two great Wes Montgomery tunes Movin' Wes, Part 1 and Movin' Wes Part 2.

QUOTES

"...by the time he had reached his twentieth birthday he was playing Charlie Christian solos regularly at the 440 Club" in Columbus, Ohio" (Ingram, 2008: 12).

"I...[Wes]...even took his album 'Giant Steps' and played it at 16 rpm to study what he...[Coltrane]...was doing and every note was correct." (Ingram, 2008: 53)

"I...[Creed Taylor]...worked with the arranger, he would put a piano sketch on tape and send it to Wes  wherever he happened to be on the road.  He'd rehearse between jobs and then come into the studio to record. He didn't read at all..." (Ingram, 2008: 34).

"These few minutes in discussion with pianist Jacobs lay to rest one of the mythologies surrounding Wes and the nature of his musicianship. How often in liner notes and articles have we been dutifully reminded of Wes's supposed inability to read music, the fact that he was 'self-taught' and all of the other points of lore trotted out to somehow mystify the genius that is utterly self-evident in the legacy that is his music?"

"In a particularly illuminating exchange, we see Wes discussing the harmony with pianist Jacobs. In requesting one of his favorite variations on the tune's ...[The End of a Love Affair]... descending harmonies we hear a musician not only fluent in the traditional nomenclature of harmony, but one who is thoroughly enlightened, eloquent and direct. (Instead of Bbm7/Eb7/Abmaj7 direct to the following Abm7/db7/Gbmaj7, Wes requests that an additional II-V anticipating the next change a half step higher be added to set up the next sequence, resulting in Bbm7/Eb7/Abmaj7/Am7/D7/ the onto Abm7/Db7/Gbmaj7 etc.)" (Metheny, 2007: 7-9).



REFERENCES

(If you are aware of further references, let me know and I'll add them to the list.)

Amazon Wes Montgomery.

Pete Billlmann and Paul Pappas (nd). Wes Montgomery Guitar Anthology. Milwaukee, Wisconsin:Hall Leonard.

Dan Bowden (1995) Wes Montgomery: The Early Years. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publications.

Corey Christiansen (2001) Essential Jazz Lines in the style of Wes Montgomery. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publications.

Tim Fitzgerald (2009) 625 Alive: The Wes Montgomery BBC Performance Transcribed. Tim Fitzgerald Music.

William L Fowler (1977) Guitar Patterns for Improvisation. Chicago, IL: Maher Publications.

Lee Garson, Jimmy Stewart and Charles Stewart (1968) Wes Montgomery Jazz Guitar Method. New York: Robbins Music.

Ralph Gleason (1961) Wes Montgomery.

Dave Gould (2013) Wes Montgomery Interviews: Interview by Ralph J Gleason first published in Guitar Player Magazine in 1973

Dave Gould (2013) Wes Montgomery Obituaries

Jesse Gress (1998) The Godfather of Cool: Wes Montgomery's Baddest Solos Note for Note. Guitar Player Magazine.

Jess Gress (2008) 10 Things You Gotta Do to Play like Wes Montgomery. Guitar Player Magazine.

Garry Hansen (2001) (ebook) Charlie Christian - Legend of the Jazz Guitar Scrib

Jamie Holroyd (2013) Play Like Wes Montgomery Today.

Adrian Ingram (2008) Wes Montgomery. Ashley Mark Publishing.

Henry Johnson (2006) Mel Bay Presents: Wes Montgomery Best of Boss Guitar. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publications.

Steve Kahn (1995) The Wes Montgomery Guitar Folio. Ft. Lauderdale, FL: Gopam Enterprises.

Wolf Marshall (2001) Best of Wes Montgomery. Milwaukee, Wisconsin:Hall Leonard.

John Mehegan (1959) Jazz Improvisation. New York: Watson-Guptill.

Pat Metheny (2007) Wes Montgomery Jazz Icons DVD Liner Notes.

Matt Mullenweg (2013) Wes Montgomery | Jazz Quotes

George Pasdirtz (2013) Wes Montgomery Transcriptions.

John Purse (1995) Mel Bay Presents: Wes Montgomery. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publications.

Emily Remler (2014) Bebop and Swing Guitar. Video and Instructional booklet.

Sheet Music Plus Wes Montgomery.

Fred Sokolow (1976) Wes Montgomery Jazz Guitar Solos. Hialeah, FL: ALMO Publications.

Fred Sokolow (1988) Wes Montgomery Artist Transcriptions for Guitar. Milwaukee, Wisconsin:Hall Leonard.

Leo Valdes (2013) Transcriptions: The Guitar Solos of Charlie Christian

Matt Wampler (2013) Wes Montgomery

Matt Warnock (2011-2014) Wes Montgomery

Matt Warnock (2011) Jazz Guitar Chords: Wes Montgomery Chord Scales

Matt Warnock (2012) Wes Montgomery Chords for Jazz Guitar -- V-I Concept

Matt Warnock (2013) 3 II-V-I Wes Octave Licks for Jazz Guitar

Matt Warnock (2013) Learn About Wes Montgomery (1925-1968).

Matt Warnock (2013) Learn About Charlie Christian (1916-1942).

Matt Warnock (2015) How to Play Jazz Guitar in the Style of Wes Montgomery. e-Book

Josh Workman (2006) The Top Five Wes Montgomery Riffs of All Time. Guitar Player Magazine.

Josh Workman (2005) "Motgomeryland Funk": As Performed by Wes Montgomery. Guitar Player Magazine

Enter the Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition

Resonance Records, Inaba Music and the Wes Montgomery Estate are holding a competition in New York City at the Merkin Concert Hall on October 10. Although the purpose of the contest is to find "this generation's next great jazz guitarist" anyone ages 14-33 can enter. The web site (here) provides all the details. Although the competition is stiff (Graham Dechter has already produced three great submissions, one of them above and another below), it's a great opportunity for students to get into the mix and provides a great learning opportunity. Also, anyone can vote on each submission (see the "Vote Now" button above).

Here are the details:

• Contestants must between the ages of 14 and 33.
• Applicants must provide three audio samples of their performances. The samples must include one Wes Montgomery cover song and two additional songs, one of which must be a ballad. Additionally, a video performance sample, not to exceed six minutes, must be submitted via YouTube or Vimeo. Notice in Graham Dechter's submissions, the performance is cut off after his solo to meet the time requirements.
• The cover songs were all written by Wes Montgomery: Jingles, Four on Six, Far Wes, Full House, Road Song, Leila, The Trick Bag, Wes Tune, Serene, West Coast Blues and associated  Finale Files. Transcriptions of actual Wes Montgomery performances are available for the songs (see the sources here, except Leila--does anyone have a transcription?). Lead sheets for each song are available for download on the web site (here).
• Total performance time for all three submissions must not exceed ten minutes. The submissions  are meant to show the contestant's abilities and need not be broadcast quality. The performances can either be solo jazz guitar, fronting a live band or playing over a pre-recorded track.
• The judges will include Pat Martino, Robert Montgomery (one of Wes Montgomery's sons) and others. Five finalists will get the trip to New York city.
• The grand prize is a $5000 Pat Martino Signature Model Benedetto Guitar.
• Submissions are due by 2:00 pm Eastern Time July 15, 2015.

For those thinking about a submission, an interesting strategic issue is how close to base your performance on Wes Montgomery's existing discography. This is really a tough question since Montgomery's performances of his own songs are all canonical and not many other jazz musicians have covered every song. One place to start would be to listen to Pat Martino and Emily Remler who have both freely played Wes Montgomery songs in their own style and some transcriptions are available (here and here). My guess is that some quotes or stylistic elements from Wes Montgomery's solos wouldn't hurt (see my next post).

The submission process is easy and I suggest all eligible jazz guitarists (particularly high school and college students) give it a try. Since you can listen to all the other submissions, there is a lot to be learned about playing jazz guitar and entering competitions which are not everyday events specifically for jazz guitar. I wish I met the age requirements!

Wes Montgomery: Sunny (Alternate Take) Melody Statement

In a prior post I laid out a framework for comping chords (here). In the last post (here), I used the comping chord forms to transform a typical lead sheet into a jazz ballad solo. I also made the assertion that we could get a long way with comping chord forms, single note and octave playing. Let's see if we can take an actual Wes Montgomery chordal solo and use comping chord forms to play the entire song, from melody statement through improvisation.

Sunny provides an interesting place to start. First, I have been unable to find transcriptions either in print or on the Internet. Second, there are two versions of Sunny from the California Dreaming Album (above, if the video gets taken down you can find the re-released California Dreaming album on iTunes here). There is a "commercial"(?) octave version and then there is a chordal version,  Sunny (Alternate Take) which is selection seven on the re-release album. The original album, released in 1966, only contained the octave version of Sunny and provides an example of the controversy surrounding over-use of octaves. The record was considered "pop fluff" by critic Scott Yanow as were many of the A&M records, although California Dreaming did reach #1 on Billboard Jazz Album Chart.

For the jazz guitar student, there is a lot to learn from every recording we have a Wes Montgomery. From all we know, Wes took every performance seriously (see for example Tom Fitzgerald's interview with jazz piano player Harold Mabern in 625 Alive: The Wes Montgomery BBC Performance Transcribed: "He put a lot of time on the instrument" p. viii) and Wes put everything he knew at that moment in time into every performance (from the same interview "Whatever you can hear, you can have, because tomorrow, he's going to doing something else. And you'll always be chasing him." p. ix). The critics have a point but for the jazz guitar student, don't get put off from studying these performances because of critical comment.

If you'd like to download the transcription up to the first key change you can click here to download the PDF file.

There is certainly a lot to learn from transcribing either the octave or the chordal version of Wes Montgomery playing Sunny. The sheet music above is not a precise transcription; it's a first pass. There's lots of different opinion about how to transcribe jazz solos (I'll get into this in a future post). I tend to keep iterating, improving my transcription over time rather than trying to get everything right the first time. This is just my boredom again. The minute I think I "get" a part of the solo, I want to go off and play it and then I get other ideas and just keep playing until its time to quit. There are lots of great transcriptions of Wes Montgomery solos (I'll make a list of the ones I know in a future post). Each one requires a lot of study and a lot of listening. Someday, I'll work my Sunny transcription up to this level. For this post, it seemed better not to hide the process from readers.

For example, in the first few measures after the four-measure vamp introduction, a better (second pass) transcription would the the one presented above. Wes uses emphasis (accent marks), grace notes, glissandos and tremolos in his actual solo to provide a bluesy feel. It's enormously important to understand Wes' use of the blues in everything he plays. On the other hand, it doesn't actually change the notes being played and, on first pass, that's what I'm trying to capture.

In the spirit of trying to capture Wes' fundamental ideas rather than the exact feel at first pass in the transcription, notice the use of counterpoint in the bridge. In the two measures above, I've pulled out the chords Wes is using between octaves in a call-and-response form (the octaves provide the call and the chords provide the response here, sometimes he uses the reverse). Notice that the lead melody note stays the same throughout this portion of the bridge while the chordal harmony and the octaves move underneath the melody. 

Finally, after playing the melody through once, Wes moves the key up a half-step to start the first improvisation. The last two measures of my first-pass transcription show the key change to C#m/Emaj with the line Wes uses to make the transition. The critics may think that Sunny is pop fluff, but Wes takes the music to a new level. How many jazz musicians will play anything in the key of C#m/Emaj? Here's another quote from the Mabern interview: 

You see, the music was challenging. See, it was about the music. It wasn't about anything else. Everything he threw at me, I tried to meet the challenge. It was a challenge, too, because of the fact that keys didn't matter to him. F# minor, F# major, Db. You'd be surprised… a lot of cats don't play in Db even now. Or A major. (p. viii)

Do I need to say more. In fact, the shift to C#m/Emaj is quite hard to play. It really tests my concentration and knowledge of the fingerboard. I find it easier to shift up a whole step and, in the couple of measures above, I give you a Wes Montgomery-style line to do the transition. If you also find the shift to C#m/Emaj a little bewildering on first try, do the whole-step key change first. But, you'll eventually have to figure out the half-step changes because Wes does a few more before he gets to the end of the song.

If you thought that John Mehegan's comment on page 32 of Jazz Improvisation that "…learning to play in twelve keys is so important to jazz improvisation…" was just some obscure academic idea, Wes' approach to Sunny should disabuse you of that notion. The solution to the problem of playing in twelve keys is, in John Mehegan's view and in my view, Figured Bass (or more specifically abstract harmonic analysis, the "Abstract Truth" of jazz). To go any further with Wes Montgomery, I need to present this area of abstract music theory in the next post.

As an obvious aside, it was quite a joke for me to pick up a piece of "pop fluff" like Sunny forty years ago thinking it would easier than anything else Wes might have done. It took me many years to realize it wasn't.

EXERCISES

1. Play either the Wes Montgomery melody statement above or my earlier melody statement (here) in twelve keys using Wes' octave line to make the transition each time.

2. Start transcribing the first Wes Montgomery improvisational solo for Sunny (use either the Octave or the chordal "Alternate Take" version) in the key of C#m/Emaj.

3. Invent your own transition lines and play Autumn Leaves (here) and Giant Steps (here) in twelve keys.